Current high capacity inserting systems are capable of performing complex operations on the individual documents being processed. The number of pages per document varies from document to document, the number of inserts may vary from document to document and multiple input channels may need to be synchronized to enable efficient processing of the documents, i.e., adding a check to a statement. In order to perform these functions document factory operations require the addition of a unique identifier to every document. When quality demands dictate higher document integrity, unique identifiers may be added to every page so that the integrity checks can be extended to each page that makes up the document. The identifier must be unique and easily read by an imaging system or a barcode reader.
The extra step of adding a unique identifier to every document (and possibly every page) and tying it to the inserter control data represents significant additional work. In addition, most mailers do not want to add material such as one or more identifiers to the document that is not relevant to the information being communicated and perhaps unattractive or a distraction to their customers.
Hence a need exists for a method and system to uniquely recognize a printed document from all other similar documents without the inclusion of additional purposeful identifying marks, data or barcodes. Furthermore, there exists a need to enable a document processing system, such as an inserter, printer, postage meter, sorter or other document processing system to be controlled based on document identification which does not depend on unique identifiers. Similarly if a document is identified with a unique identifying mark on the first page, there exists a need to identify each subsequent page in the document without requiring identifying marks on each page. The identification data is then used to control the processing of the printed document based upon the recognition and enable the performance of quality checks.
In addition, there exists a need to identify each subsequent page in the document, for example as part of a quality check, without requiring identifying marks on each page.